Periodic medication dispensing delivery systems have recently been developed to provide for unit dosage delivery of cosmetic and medicinal products. These systems are designed to be easy to manipulate so as to dispense and apply the medicinal product. These systems include devices such as the pen-type dispensers described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,309,185 and US Published Application No. 2007/0020038, which are said to allow for storage of a cosmetic or medicinal product in a device that also contains an integrated apparatus for application of the product. These devices are said to be useful for a variety of cosmetic or medicinal products including dentifrices, such as tooth gel, tooth paste, mouthwash, mouth rinse, tooth whitener, cosmetics such as mascara and eyeliner, hair care products and/or skin treatment compositions.
Certain topical medicinal/cosmetic compositions that comprise volatile solvents that might make use of such delivery systems have heretofore not been made available in such systems. In particular, these devices could be useful for topical liquid cosmetic or medicinal compositions, except for the fact that the compositions contain large amounts volatile solvents necessary as delivery vehicles for active ingredients and additional agents, such as film forming agents. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,433,950 describe certain liquid and gel formulations for treating skin lesions, which formulations contain a flexible collodion vehicle comprising nitrocellulose film forming agent in volatile solvents, primarily diethyl ether. Such compositions can contain active ingredients, such as keratolytic agents, for treatment of skin lesions such as warts, calluses and corns, or other skin disorders such as acne, or psoriasis. Because of the presence of volatile solvents in these formulations any substantial escape of solvent from such a periodic dosing device before first use or between uses will result in the treatment compositions having higher active ingredient concentrations than currently allowed by regulatory agencies.
Thus, there is a need for volatile containing cosmetic or medicinal compositions that maintains acceptable active ingredient concentrations in the compositions when packaged in a periodic dispensing delivery system. Further, there is a need for a film forming medical composition that provides sufficient film forming capabilities yet maintains acceptable active ingredient concentrations in the compositions when contained in a periodic dispensing delivery system. Such compositions will better resist the loss of excessive amounts of volatile solvents which will result in increasing the concentration of the active agents beyond regulatory allowances for such drug products and still form useful treatment films upon application. These and other objectives are provided by the invention more fully described and claimed herein.
All patent and non-patent references cited herein are hereby incorporated in their entirety into this specification by reference thereto. Identification or discussion of any reference in this section or any part of this specification shall not be construed as an admission that such reference is available as prior art to the present application.